Panebianco3d

Iphone games: Namco for hire

2008-04-02T13:45:00.004+02:00

In these weeks Apple presented its Iphone SDK, now finally companies can develop applications and games for this device.
People can be interested seeing that some companies are searching developers for hiring to increase their team knowledge about iphone development: via Gamasutra, I found this open positions into Namco : full time iPhone Games Engineers for Namco in San Jose (CA, USA).
Finally something is moving into the Iphone games industry... :)

Soul of Chogokin Kotetsu Shin Jeeg

2008-04-02T13:34:00.003+02:00

After many rumors, Bandai has officially presented its new Soul of Chogokin: Kotetsu Shin Jeeg. This model will be available on september 2008.
Now i'm awaiting (and hoping) for a Revoltech Kotetsu Shin Jeeg by Kaiyodo... :P

Some links for more info and photos:

http://www.japanrobot.it/Articoli.htm
http://www.zonahobby.com/ita/flash_news.asp

Isometric games : 3d character animation test

2008-03-18T15:55:00.004+01:00

In the past week I produced a simple animation to test with an isometric style game. My goal is replace my static characters in Metalwarriors with those that includes animations.
But I'm not really sure to do this mainly with for these reasons...
- creating animations for each character means spending lot of time: and how many actions I will do animate? Only a simple walk, or other actions, as fight, death, and so on? Creating each action means create "n" frames for 4 different directions.
- how many Kb these animations will take? This can be really slow downloading times...

However, some descriptions about this simple animation...
I created this animation with Lightwave 3d starting from a 3d character, created as described in my 3d Tutorial: Modeling your first Anime Robot in 3d (italian translation here), then I animated with a simple walk cycle, rendered as separated frames in BMP file format. For a better result, I choose a 17 frames sequence (see preview).
Creating characters in 3d also for 2d bitmap based games has a great advantage: after created animation cycles for a single character, I can create the same cycles for all other characters, simply substituing the 3d models. Additionally, I can create separate animation frames and, by saving in 32bit color depth, I can have each single frame with a transparent background. This can be an advantage for test purposes, to check the optimal size of my bitmaps frames, to have good animations but not a wasting movieclips sizes...

After this process, I can import my bitmap sequences directly into Adobe Flash (name each frame as "animationCyle_001.bmp", "animationCyle_002.bmp"): Flash converts the frame sequence directly into the timeline, each bitmap into a separate frame.
So I can create a single movieclip for my character, and naming each first frame of each sequence into Flash timeline, I can access and play my animation cycles via actionscript.

FPrime updated to version 3.2

2008-02-27T14:08:00.004+01:00

via Flay: FPrime, an external rendering engine for Lightwave 3d, has been updated to version 3.2. A number of fixes and updates are in there including better LW 9.3.1 compatability, reversed motion blur, voxel support and a host of others improvements.

Ratatouille Oscar winner!

2008-02-25T14:31:00.003+01:00

The Academy Awards 2008 confirms the popular voices who said Ratatouille the Oscar winner as Best Animated Feature Film.

I agree, great movie! :)

Newtek announces Lightwave 9.5 !

2008-02-25T00:06:00.002+01:00

Publishing this press release on its website, NewTek Announces Fourth Major Update to LightWave 3D® v9.

LightWave v9.5 Update Includes:

Character Animation Enhancements
New Hair and Fur System
Enhanced IK and Animation Systems

New Collada, FBX and OBJ I/O
New IK Calculation Options for Faster Performance
New Bone Type - Joints
New Objective Options for IK
IK/FK blending
Multi-threaded Mesh Deformation Evaluation

Modeler

UV Unwrap/UV Relax
Symmetry Tolerance

Lighting, Rendering and Surfacing Enhancements
All New Lighting System

New Light API
IES Lights
New Spherical Light
Area and Linear Lights Enhanced

Renderer

Faster Sampling System for GI
Improved GI Quality
New GI Controls to Customize the Render
Disk-Based GI Cache

Node Editor Enhancements

Interpolated Soft Reflections/Refractions
Support for New Light API Functions
Oren-Nayar Shading Option for Many Materials
Optimizations for Materials and Shaders

SDK and LScript Improvements

New Light Plug-in Class for third Party Lights and Light Plug-ins
SDK Support for New GI Functions and Disk Cache
SDK Support for New IK and Animation Capabilities
Set Surface Properties Through the Surface Global

UI and Workflow Enhancements

Enhanced Scene Limits
Updated Scene File Format
EXIF Metadata Support
OpenGL GLSL Enhanced for New Lighting System
Image Viewer Consolidation

Pricing and Availability
LightWave® v9 is available now at suggested retail price of $895US. LightWave v9.5 will be available as a free update to registered LightWave v9 owners. Registered owners of LightWave 3D® [8] or earlier are eligible to purchase an upgrade to LightWave v9 for $395US. For more information or to purchase, please visit www.lightwave3d.com or call NewTek Sales at 1-800-368-5441, for international inquiries dial +1-210-370-8000.

Top 10 Usability Guidelines for Enterprise Applications

2008-02-24T23:58:00.002+01:00

Via Biskero, I discovered this very interesting and useful article on Nokia Forum: Top 10 Usability Guidelines for Enterprise Applications.

Top 10 Usability Guidelines for Games

2008-02-24T23:43:00.003+01:00

Via Biskero, I discovered this very interesting and useful article on Nokia Forum: Top 10 Usability Guidelines for Games.

These guidelines can be used for mobile game development and programming but also for web ad advergames.

Call of Duty 4: best videogame of 2008

2008-02-12T14:52:00.000+01:00

During the 11th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences has nominated the best videogames of 2008 in various categories.

Here's the complete list:

Game of the Year: Call of Duty 4
Console Game of the Year: Call of Duty 4
Computer Game of the Year: The Orange Box
Outstanding Innovation in Gaming: Rock Band
Handheld Game of the Year: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year: World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade
Cellular Game of the Year: Skate
Role-Playing Game of the Year: Mass Effect
Racing Game of the Year: Motorstorm
Outstanding Achievement in Game Design: Portal
Adventure Game of the Year: Super Mario Galaxy
Sports Game of the Year: Skate
Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year: Command and Conquer 3
Action Game of the Year: Call of Duty 4
Family Game of the Year: Rock Band
Outstanding Achievement in Animation: Assassin's Creed
Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction: BioShock
Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering: Crysis
Outstanding Character Performance: Portal
Outstanding Achievement in Story Development: BioShock
Outstanding Achievement in Game Play Engineering: Portal
Outstanding Achievement in Online Game Play: Call of Duty 4
Downloadable Game of the Year: Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition: BioShock
Outstanding Achievement in Soundtrack: Rock Band
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design: BioShock

More info at official website

News found via Punto-Informatico.

Transformers: Rig Demo

2008-02-07T14:08:00.000+01:00

During my latest session on Cgtalk.com website I encountered this great post by Mattias Jervill about rigging and animating a special Optimus Prime character from Transformer's movie / tv series. Mattias is an advanced user and works for many hollywood movies as character TD.

In this post you can download a great video (65Mb) and see how Mattias has rigged his character, and see from the software interface how he can transform it (Robot> car > helicopter) in a realistic mode using sliders, values, and understanding in each great 3d work - before starting with modeling and rigging - we must plan our work deeply.

For more info about Mattias Jervill, see his personal website.

Iron Man Movie Trailer

2008-02-06T14:53:00.000+01:00

Via Youtube, an interesting movie trailer about Iron Man, the newest superhero (marvel side) movie coming soon in cinemas around the world.
Obviously, great special effects are guarantee! :)

New week, new Lightwave Tutorials (part 5)

2008-02-03T11:50:00.000+01:00

2007 Flash Lite Game Contest

2008-02-02T19:32:00.000+01:00

via Biskero, I remember 2007 Flash Lite game contest , sponsored by Playyoo, Adobe and O'Reilly. Prizes for this year are:

1st Prize - A prize of chosen by the winner up to US$ 5,000 and sponsored by Playyoo.
2nd Prize - Adobe software licenses
3rd Prize - O’Reilly books

For more info, visit the contest website

Voodoo Camera Tracking

2008-01-28T13:47:00.000+01:00

In these weeks I'm working hard, It's time to improve my skills and back to all my old passions.
So, searching about newer versions for some 3d Camera Tracking softwares, I found this very interesting 3d camera tracker: Voodoo.

Voodoo Camera Tracker is a FREE software and seems to works very well. It can export for most 3d applications. Taken from Vodoo website:

"The Voodoo Camera Tracker estimates camera parameters and reconstructs a 3D scene from image sequences. The estimation algorithm offers a full automatic and robust solution to estimate camera parameters for video sequences. The results are useful for many applications like film production, 3D reconstruction, or video coding. The estimated parameters can be exported to the 3D animation packages: 3D Studio Max, Blender, Lightwave, Maya, and Softimage.

The Voodoo Camera Tracker works very alike to commercial available camera trackers (also called match movers), e.g. 3D-Equalizer by Science-D-Visions, boujou by 2d3, Matchmover by RealViz , PFTrack by The Pixel Farm, SynthEyes by Andersson Technologies. Please consider buying a commercial product, if you need a camera tracker with professional support."

Voodoo Camera is available for Windows and Linux systems; actually you can download the release 0.9.4 beta.

New Lightwave 3d tutorials (post #4)

2008-01-27T12:59:00.000+01:00

Flash 3d programming: Sandy3d

2008-01-27T11:59:00.000+01:00

In this post I want to introduce Sandy 3d for Flash developers.

I know, this is not a real news, because this projects has started some years ago. But now (and in next weeks) I want start to study newer implementations, interfaces and possibilities given by my knowledges in flash developing and 3d modeling, rendering and animations, and use these skills together. So, browsing the web I chosed to try these APIs (they seems to be the best for flash developing). Above, some informations taken from Sandy 3d website :

Sandy is an intuitive and user-friendly 3D open-source library developed in Actionscript 2.0 and now Actionscript 3.0 for Adobe Flash.

The idea came in 2005 from the lack of possibilities to run 3D in Flash. It was also a way to solve the major problems of the other 3D engines available at that time :

- Lack of documentation or support.
- Abandoned projects.
- Exclusive and limited engine.

Sandy is now one of the possibilities to create some 3D content in Flash. Other projects came out since Sandy first releases, giving more choice to users.

This 3D engine main features are :

Flash player 7 to 9 compatibility.
Both MTASC and Macromedia compilers compliant for AS2 and Flash CS3 and FlexBuilder for AS3 versions.
Several 3D primitives, allowing fast and parameterized object creation without any 3D modelisation knowledge.
Advanced and easy object management allowing some fantastic possibilities during your creations (scaling, rotation, translation, tween, etc.)
Advanced camera management ( rotation, motion on linear or bezier-curve path, movements, etc.)
Complex object loading thanks to the .ASE and .WRL files parser , but also Collada and 3DS files for AS3, (files generated by several 3D object modeling packages such as 3D Studio Max or Blender)
Material system to easily change your objects appearance. Several material are available allowing to create transparent faces, bitmap texture and video texture as webcam video stream.
Managment of Flash filters bringing some very nice visual effects

Lightwave Plugins: Sumatra

2008-01-23T13:40:00.000+01:00

Sumatra is a new very interesting plugin for Lightwave 3d, designed by LWToolbox to help the user quickly create vegetations.
Currently the package consists of four plugins working in 32 and 64bit, two for layout, and two for modeler.

It seems to be really easy to use: you can "paint" vegetations directly on your models.
This plugin also includes a objects with different LOD (level of detail) so you can set it to place low polygon version instead of those in high details, depending by the distance between camera-objects.

Regarding vegetations, objects aren't clip maps as Archvison's plugins and libraries, but effective 3d models with polygons.

Sumatra is a commercial plugin, but its cost is so cheap (only 65 EUR for the PRO version) to be your perfect plugin - for example - for architecture rendering and animations.

You can also test the plugin, download the LITE version.

Limitations of the Light Version:
most additional options inactive, painting reduced to 50 polygons.

Sumatra is available for both Windows and Macintosh systems.

Industrial Design by Art. Lebedev Studio

2008-01-23T13:32:00.000+01:00

Browsing the web I visited this interesting website: Lebedev Studio from Russia (but with offices also in Latvia and Ukraine), that produces lots of industrial desing objects and projects.
You can buy them online!
One of most interesting is this keyboard named Optimus Tacticus Keyboard, without keys, a concept keyboard:

Optimus Tactus does not have physical keys, which means there are no restrictions on their shape and size.
Any part of the keyboard surface can be programmed to perform any function or to display any images.

Romantic Prague and Super deformed Jeeg screensavers and wallpapers for mobile

2008-01-22T22:57:00.000+01:00

I updated my website with 2 new screensavers and wallpapers for mobiles with Flashlite player:

Romantic Prague Screensaver Wallpaper
An amazing slideshow with 29 beautiful Prague photos: you can use it as screensaver or wallpaper for your mobile phone. For devices with Flashlite player 1.1 or better.
You can buy it from panebianco3d.com Store for only EUR 2.39

SuperDeformed Jeeg Screensaver Wallpaper
A funny (but also simple) screensaver / wallpaper for devices with Flashlite player 1.1 or better

Vision Racer for new game experiences

2008-01-22T22:41:00.000+01:00

A new interesting accessory for your race and driving games experience is made by Vision Racer International who have created this structure who includes:

- lightweight alloy frame
-race bred performance seat
- pedals
- height & tilt adjustable seat
- fore and aft seat adjustment
- gear shifter
- disassembles for storage

More info on Vision Racer website

Updated my curriculum...

2008-01-22T22:29:00.001+01:00

Finally in these days I updated my curriculum vitae. I uploaded them in my website panebianco3d.com where you can connect to download.

There are 2 languages available:

MY CURRICULUM IN ITALIAN and MY CURRICULUM IN ENGLISH

Can I help you? ;-)

Asus EEE: the best micro PC now also in Italy!

2008-01-22T22:14:00.001+01:00

Finally the Asus EEE is available in Italy: since january 17 we can be buy it in many shop.
One of those, Mediaworld sell it a 512 ram and 4gb version for 299 euros. Good! :)

But what's Asus EEE?

It's a really small notebook (see photo!), with many features to use it in a couple of situations.
With a 7" display, it also has wifi and lan connectivity, expandible memory, USB ports, stereo speakers, Microphone, webcam (not in all versions!) and Linux as OS.

It's also XP compatible (many users have installed windows xp and it works fine).

Software preinstalled includes many office automation solutions, with a word, excel and powerpoint style software compatible, an internet browser, an email client, Skype (!).

There are 4 different configurations: the cheapest cost only 199 USD! (in italy, I dont' know :P)

Other informations about Asus EEE: http://eeepc.asus.com/

Image taken from slashgear blog

New video tutorials for Lightwave 3d (part 3)

2008-01-13T17:55:00.001+01:00

These days William Vaughan continues producing lots of video tutorials about many lightwave 3d functionalities. They're really cool and you can easily reproduce his works:

Introduction to the Router Tool :
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/router.mov

Introduction to the Morph Polygons Tool :
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/mpoly.mov

Introduction to the Motion Path Extrude Tool :
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/MPE.mov

Introduction to Toggle Backdrop On/Off :
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/toggle.mov

Creating a glass surface using the Dielectric Material Node :
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/glass.mov

Using Adaptive Pixel Subdivision to control the level of detail at render time:
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/APS.mov

Creating Cathedral Ceilings :
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/cathedral.mov

Introduction to the Bend Tool :
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/Bend.mov

Introduction to the Gemstone Tool :
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/Gem.mov

Introduction to the Move Path and Path Tool :
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/Path.mov

Introduction to the Platonic Solid Tool :
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/Platonic.mov

Introduction to Negative Lights :
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/Negative.mov

Introduction to the Effector custom object :
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/ED.mov

Introduction to Endomorphs, Morph Mixer and Open GL Sliders :
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/Endo.mov

Creating a hand-held camera motion :
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/HandHeld.mov

Introduction to the Lathe Tool :
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/Lathe.mov

Introduction to the Center, Center 1D and Center Sel 1D functions :
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/Center.mov

Terragen 2: The chepest Realistic Virtual 3d Worlds creator

2008-01-06T22:26:00.000+01:00

Some years ago I worked a lot with Terragen, a fantastic virtual 3d world creator shareware by Planetside.
Now the authors have updated their software with a new version, Terragen 2 (TG 2).
Clouds, mountains, seas and lakes, deserts and so on are an incredible look. Additionally, now you can also add vegetations for impressive renderings.

You can download it and test (with some limitations applied), let's go to download!

Taken from Planetside website about Terragen 2:

Terragen 2 (TG2) is now the primary development focus of Planetside Software. TG2 is a complete rewrite of Terragen from scratch, and is a significant advance beyond the capabilities of Terragen v0.9. Apart from being a much more powerful renderer, TG2 has a much more flexible architecture which will allow development to proceed at a considerably greater pace.

Terragen 2 features an advanced hybrid micropolygon renderer with powerful multi-angle displacement capabilities. It has a versatile procedural engine that can be utilised to apply subpixel-level detail to almost any aspect of a scene. Terragen 2 is capable of rendering billions of polygons in a single scene.

Core Features

Terragen 2 features the following as part of its core architecture :

Cutting-edge adaptive subdivision renderer.
Modular, plugin-based architecture.
Render entire planets, sweeping vistas, tiny rock gardens, or anything in between.
Import 3D objects for rendering. Export high resolution objects.
Render millions of boulders or trees using "instancing".
Add multiple heightfields to your scene. Use procedural terrains that can span an entire planet.
Apply almost "infinite" fractal detail to terrain and other objects.
Overhanging terrain using procedural displacements, image-based displacements, or imported geometry.
Volumetric clouds or fast "2.5D" clouds.
Production quality anti-aliasing and motion blur.
Node graph editor for ultimate control over shaders and textures.

Great job, Planetside! :-)

Flash development for Sony PSP

2008-01-02T10:54:00.001+01:00

About game development using flash programming, I cannot forget you can use your Sony PSP for game development. Taken from Adobe website:

"The Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a leading handheld game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment.
A Flash-enabled device that supports Flash Player 6, the PSP enables consumers to play games, browse the web, watch movies, listen to music and more. Since its launch in Japan in December 2004, Sony has shipped more than 15 million PSP's worldwide, establishing its position as a new handheld entertainment platform around the world. Sony PSPs are available globally to consumers and can be purchased online or through retailers.

To get the Flash Player 6 installed on your Sony PSP, you must have the Sony PSP ROM update version 2.70 or later.

The Flash Player 6 is enabled only through the web browser so in order to view SWF files they can be either embedded in HTML pages (just like desktop web pages) or just viewed as standalone SWFS by specifying the target file path in the web browser."

More Resources:

Adobe website: Flash development for Sony PSP
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/psp.html

An interesting article from Flashdevices.net :
http://www.flashdevices.net/2007/12/what-do-you-do-with-flash-on-your-sony.html

Please post your additional flash development for Sony PSP resources here! :)